Please note that the submission of a candidate statement was voluntary, so not all candidates listed on the ballot will have a statement.

Candidate: Kurt F. Geisinger, PhD

Office: President-elect

Candidate Statement:

I am director of the Buros Center for Testing and Meierhenry Distinguished University Professor at the University of Nebraska. Previously, I served as psychology professor/chair at Fordham University, Dean of Arts and Sciences, and Vice President for Academic Affairs at two institutions. I have considerable leadership experience, working to bring about positive change. Division 5, my primary APA home, faces difficult decisions and needs to involve its membership in considering how its three sections (Quantitative, Qualitative, and Assessment) can effectively interact with each other.

I was honored to receive the Jacob Cohen Award for Distinguished Teaching and Mentoring from Division 5. I chaired its Fellows Committee twice and the Membership committee, and represented the Division on the Council of Representatives for two terms. I hold fellow status in Division 5 and five other divisions, and in APS.

I served APA on numerous committees, including Board of Directors, Good Governance Project, and Committee on Psychological Testing and Assessment. As APA delegate, I co-chaired the Joint Committee on Testing Practices. I am president of the Assessment and Evaluation division of the International Association of Applied Psychology and of the International Test Commission.

I have taught graduate and undergraduate testing and statistics classes, edited/co-edited more than 12 volumes including the APA Handbook of Testing and Assessment in Psychology, Psychological Testing of Hispanics (2 editions), and four Mental Measurements Yearbooks, have edited Applied Measurement in Education, and have served on about a dozen editorial boards. I have published approximately 140 chapters and journal articles.

Candidate: Pascal Deboeck, PhD

Office: Member-at-Large

Candidate Statement:

Pascal R. Deboeck is an Associate Professor at the University of Utah and serves as a statistical consultant for the University of Utah’s Consortium for Families and Health Research. Pascal received his Ph.D. in Quantitative Psychology from the University of Notre Dame in 2007. From 2008 to 2016 Pascal was a faculty member of the Quantitative Psychology program at the University of Kansas. Within APA, Pascal was the Division 5 Program Chair for the 2017 annual conference and has served as a consulting editor for Psychological Methods since 2013. Pascal’s research focuses on methods that advance the modeling of repeated intraindividual measurements; specifically, the methodological development and application of differential equation models and dynamical systems concepts to social science, behavioral and medical data.

Candidate: Richard Gonzalez, PhD

Office: Member-at-Large

Candidate Statement:

I received my Phd in 1990 from Stanford University in Psychology. I was an Assistant/Associate Professor at the University of Washington (1990-97) and am currently Amos N. Tversky Collegiate Professor of Psychology and Statistics at the University of Michigan, where I’ve been since 1997.

I see an exciting future for Division 5. It can play an important role as the field navigates new methodological developments in data science, computational approaches, working with heterogenous sources of qualitative and quantitative data, methods of model evaluation, nonparametric approaches, standards for reproducible analytic and computational practices, etc. Division 5 and its three journals will play an important role in facilitating the spread, training and use of these new methodological developments across the broad field of psychology, and, where possible, integrate them with more traditional approaches.

If elected, I will work to ensure that Division 5 remains a relevant and proactive voice in the methodological changes that are happening in the field.

Candidate: David S. Herzberg, PhD

Office: Council Representative

Candidate Statement:

David S. Herzberg received his BA in Philosophy from the University of California, Berkeley in 1987, and PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1998. He then completed a two-year post-doctoral fellowship in Neuropsychology at UCLA’s Neuropsychiatric Hospital and Institute. Currently, he is Chief Operating Officer at Western Psychological Services (WPS), a publisher of clinical assessments based in Torrance, California. During his career at WPS he has supervised the development and revision of many widely used clinical tests, including the Piers-Harris Self-Concept Scales, the Developmental Profile, the Sensory Processing Measure, and Oral and Written Language Scales. His research specialty is the application of single-parameter item response models to scale development for behavioral rating measures and direct performance tests. His past service to Division 5 includes terms as Editor of The Score, the Division’s newsletter, and as Assessment Section Representative. He would welcome the opportunity to advocate for the Division’s interests as Representative to APA Council.

Candidate: Abigail T. Panter, PhD

Office: Council Representative

Candidate Statement:

Dr. Abigail Panter (B.A., Wellesley College, 1985; Ph.D., New York University, 1989) is senior associate dean for undergraduate education and professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she works to increase educational access and create high-impact, outstanding academic experiences for the undergraduate student body. She joined APA and Division 5 as a first-year doctoral student over 30 years ago and has been proud to serve the division over these years. Her APA-Division 5 governance roles include: division president, council representative, program chair, member-at-large, membership chair, and Committee of Psychological Tests and Assessment member. She is very comfortable advocating for and speaking up on behalf of Division 5, Science, and emerging topics facing membership.

Dr. Panter develops innovative research designs, measurement, and data analytic strategies in education and health sciences. She is a program evaluator for the Chancellor’s Science Scholars, a Meyerhoff adaptation for underrepresented college students pursuing science, and directs the Finish Line Project, a $3M “First in the World” U.S. Department of Education grant testing interventions for first generation college students using quantitative and qualitative methods. She held federal policy roles and served on the Graduate Record Examinations Advisory Board. Dr. Panter’s co-edited research design and quantitative methods books include: The APA Handbook of Research Methods in Psychology (2012), APA Dictionary of Statistics and Research Methods (2013), and The Handbook of Ethics in Quantitative Methodology (2011). She received numerous teaching awards including APA’s Jacob Cohen Award for Distinguished Teaching and Mentoring.